The ‘New’ Industrial Relations and International Economic Crisis: Australia in 2009

Abstract

While the sphere of industrial relations was overshadowed by the global financial crisis, 2009 was a year of immense change in the regulation of work and workplaces. Many provisions of the Rudd government's Fair Work Act 2009, including the new collective bargaining regime, came into effect. Unions and employer organizations were preoccupied with the monumental process of award modernization throughout 2009. The AIRC has ceased to exist and it, along with a number of other regulatory bodies, has been subsumed into the new institution Fair Work Australia. The remaining key provisions of the Fair Work Act 2009, including the NES and modern awards, are effective on January 1 2010. This article analyses the early days of the operation of this 'new' Australian industrial relations.

The Role of Ideas in Understanding Industrial Relations Policy Change in Liberal Market Economies

“…The Fair Work Act contained numerous other provisions favorable to unions and workers. These included partially reestablishing the award system of industry‐ and occupational‐specific standards, restoring certain powers to the federal industrial tribunal, creating ten National Employment Standards to set minimum conditions for all employees, and strengthening the role for “bargaining agents” in workplace negotiations (Cooper : 265–68). However, enabling business efficiency continued to be one of the objectives of the legislation.…”

“…The legislation did not reverse all of the Howard government's initiatives and the Australian industrial relations framework retains many of the characteristics of an LME model: decentralized wage determination underpinned by statutory individual rights and restrictions on union activity including the ability to take coordinated industrial action. Nevertheless, the Fair Work Act did strengthen the capacity of unions to organize and collectively bargain, abolish individual contracts, and partially restore the capacity of the award system to provide a safety net of coordinated wages and conditions that were specific to workers in different industries and occupations (Cooper ; Wright and Lansbury ).…”

Employer theft of temporary migrant workers’ wages in Australia: Why has the state failed to act?

“…Close political connections between the Coalition parties and employer associations served to deliver many of the neoliberal employment and immigration reforms described above, particularly under the Howard government (Cooper and Ellem, 2008;Wright, 2015). Labor governments may be less committed to these policies; however, the reforms of the Rudd and Gillard governments did not fundamentally challenge the decentralised and individualised nature of employment regulation in which the role of union activity remained legally confined (Cooper, 2010). Aside from marginally strengthening individual workers' rights, these Labor governments also failed to reverse the Howard government's demand-driven immigration policies aimed primarily at meeting employers' short-term needs (Howe, 2013).…”

Employer and Employer Association Matters in 2009

“…One of the changes introduced by Work Choices and which the Rudd Government chose to retain and extend was the drive for a national IR system for private sector employees. The Fair Work Amendment (State Referrals and Other Measures) Bill 2009 passed through federal parliament on 2 December 2009; this, together with a number of bilateral and multilateral intergovernmental agreements, facilitates the referral of IR powers by the States to the Commonwealth (see also Cooper, 2010;Sutherland and Riley, 2010).…”

“…The AIRC's approach to the modernization process was largely one of compromise resulting in employers -as with unions -finding that some of their submissions were accepted, others rejected (see also Baird and Williamson, 2010;Brigden, 2010;Cooper, 2010).…”